on the road again

Insistin’ that the world be turnin’ my way, I have quite literally been on the road. Again.

Being On The Road, as Canadians will be aware, involves Eating At Tim Hortons.

The background to this tale is that I do not like sandwiches all that much. I don’t mind sandwiches, but they don’t exactly stop my clock. They are massively handy, though, and since this past two months there has been a lot of On The Road-ing, they have featured quite strongly in my daily menu. It means that by this point in the game, I could probably be quite happy never eating a sandwich again. Especially not one with a slice of (insert name of processed meat) and a slice of (insert name of sliceable hard cheese).

So, it used to be that if you just wanted some salad between two bits of bun at Tim Horton’s (because of the issues vis-a-vis Ham and Swiss) you had to ask for a ‘garden vegetable sandwich”. It also contains cream cheese. I learnt this through practice. I am able at learning by doing.

However in recent visits, asking for a garden vegetable sandwich has met with uncomprehending stares. I have had to describe the way in the old days they used to take that to mean lettuce, cucumber and tomatoes with cream cheese. Between two bits of bun. Once it was described, they caught on very easily, but it was a bizarre turnaround from not being able to use any other phrase than ‘garden vegetable’ to suddenly ONLY being able to use a phrase that WASN’T ‘garden vegetable’. (Either way, the servers look at me as if I have just got off the crazy train carrying a bag of mothballs and wearing half a Tunnock’s tea cake on my head, because NOBODY ever just wants a salad sandwich, but anyway).

So, armed with my description, and On The Road, I hit Tim’s.

ME: Could I have a sandwich with salad and cream cheese in it, please?
TIM:(for it is he): You want a bagel with cream cheese?
ME: No, a sandwich. With the cream cheese and salad.
TIM: An egg salad sandwich?
ME: No. It is the same salad you put in your egg salad sandwiches, the lettuce and cucumbers and tomatoes. But with cream cheese. In the sandwich.
TIM: So, do you want an egg salad sandwich or a chicken salad sandwich?
ME: Well, quite honestly, I don’t even like sandwiches.
TIM:(trying to be helpful) on a bagel?
ME: No. No. It is two bits of bun, and on one of them, you put cream cheese. And on top of that, the salad items heretofore described, and then the other bit of bun.
TIM: Madam, I can only assume what you mean is a GARDEN VEGETABLE SANDWICH.
ME: Oh good heavens. Thank you. Could I also have a receipt?
TIM: Indeed.
(The sandwich comes)
ME: Please could I have my receipt?
TIM: Sorry. I forgot. Now it’s not on the register any more.
ME: Well, but I know this seems a little much, but the thing is, I am On The Road Again, and that means I should really by this point be getting’ the world turnin’ my way like a band of insistent gypsies, and it also means my organisation buys my lunch, which is basically the biggest solid it has ever done me, (the tears begin to well) and if I don’t get a receipt for this sandwich I don’t even want or like, that is literally four dollars and ninety seven cents that I WILL NEVER SEE AGAIN.
TIM: Oh good heavens.

it's what you do with time

Here is some Time. It's mine.

I am Biding it.

Things are afoot. There is much to do.

Alongside the biding, though, and the things underway (it's under weigh, isn't it, ship people? I know. I do know. But underway is less weird), I hit the big city lights with my book talk, Steampunk is the New Zombies, this week!

It's all on my own, so I don't even have to defend my (measured, literate, solid-as-a-fictional-steam-powered-juggernaut) theories against anyone. If you wish to challenge me, I will fight you with my ninja handouts. They have fonts. Zombie fonts.

And now, back to the Biding.

*bides*

the happy, from the weekend road trip

1. Baking a Grandma Cake (thatched with chocolate buttons) and taking it to share with the fam in the USA.

2. Merging from Highway 6 onto the 403 at Burlington for the first time. Dudes, the merge is BACKWARDS. You merge into the OUTSIDE LANE. Also, the merge lane is approximately two feet in length. It is massively exhilarating, provided you come out alive.

3. Three words: Dance Dance Revolution. Against my sister. Bring it on.

4. Fall colours in New York state.

5. The Coodabeens singing along to Wired for Sound.

6. Podcasting, enabling my entertainment - on the 403 back through the world's darkest country night, and without even the excitement of the Merge of Flying Death - to be the Coodabeens singing along to Wired for Sound.

7. My heroically super-fuel-efficient little car getting me to a deserted petrol station somewhere near Woodstock on said dark country night to give it a drink. I apparently forgot you cannot drive from southwestern Ontario to upstate New York AND BACK on one tank, and only noticed when the fuel light sputtered on. My car manual reliably informs me I then have 15 ks to save the situation, and we made it to the oasis at 12.4.